


(An Anatomically Correct Diagram of) Dance Partners and Other Disasters

by ingeniousmacabre



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, F/M, Mutual Pining, Partner Swapping, The generic "i want us to be a thing but am too emotionally constipated to Try™" situation, i love the smell of a nice crisp slow burn in the morning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-04-26 19:23:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14408889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ingeniousmacabre/pseuds/ingeniousmacabre
Summary: Tessa Virtue has only one true love, one life goal, and one ambition: dance. She has three rules to emphasize this, ordered by importance:1. Don't fall in love with your dance partner.2. Don't partner with Scott Moir, if possible (see #1).3. And when all else fails, don't touch the chocolate.But by the looks of it, even the chocolate isn't safe.ORA ballet-academy!AU, feat Tessa and Scott at the barres, and what other dancers have to say about it.





	1. Una Mattina

**Author's Note:**

> So somebody prompted me to do a ballet AU with Swan Lake as the centerpiece but this was the only thing I could come up with and then people liked it I guess so I will now make An Attempt™ to make it into a multi-chapter fic ideally so I can properly fill in the actual prompt from my anon.
> 
> (in my head i am a responsible fic writer who can encapsulate the TS relationship from the teenaged years to their prime Principal Dancer years but who are we kidding when have i ever been responsible lol. but reviews would be super duper nice. <3 )
> 
> DISCLAIMER: It’s been ten years since I last danced, please don’t hate me for messing up the details, I don’t remember anything, and kindly suspend all your disbelief on the hangers provided to your right…. 
> 
> [ANOTHER DISCLAIMER: I am not nor have I ever been inclined to write RPF etc etc. Ya'll know the general drill around here. :)) ]

_That boy has great turnout._

The first thing that Tessa notices about him is his impeccable turnout, a straight line bisecting his feet right across, his toes would nearly point backwards if they were rotated a little more, his alignment perfect.  _It’s absurd_ , Tessa thinks, and she looks down at her own legs—knobby, lanky things in her two-year-old peach tights—with a sudden and unwanted self-consciousness.

 _No matter_ , she thinks, as she takes a steely breath. She’s here to dance. She’s here to pursue her passion.  

(But she takes a spot at the the far end of the room, anyway. Away from him.)

It’s early yet, and there are only three, four people in the studio, herself included. Turnout Boy just happens to be one of them, working on his balance at the middle barre. She busies herself with warming up, but if her eyes dart to him every once in a while through the mirrors, well, she’s going to blame his truly ridiculous turnout.

Soon enough, the studio starts to fill with students, a healthy mix of thin-framed graceful young creatures, ready to prove themselves—and along with them, all manner of tensions that elite dancers are naturally possessed with. Sharp, commanding, hungry. Some cutting, some haughty, some with quiet determination. A lot of students have gravitated towards each other, forming little tribes with similar attributes as they all warm up and prepare for class. In a few minutes, class would start, but it’s gotten quite loud and quite social in the studio that Tessa is starting to wonder how they’d ever start on time.

She prefers not to speak or even make eye contact with anyone; she knows this kind of crowd, and it’s best to stay invisible until they deem you worthy of acknowledgement. And that’s alright, really; she’s quite content stretching her leg up above her head, against the wall somewhere near the farthest corner, when suddenly:

“Hey. Hello.”

She turns her head, sees Turnout Boy standing right in front of her, his dark, sweaty hair nearly falling into his eyes. From coming in early and practicing before class, of course, and she realises he must have been practicing at least a good hour beforehand. She would be impressed, were she in a physically more capable situation to remember to be impressed. As it is, her limbs are currently too pretzeled.

“You’re new,” he continues, “I haven’t seen you before. I’m Scott.”

Turnout Boy— _Scott_ —extends his hand, but Tessa is currently preoccupied with stretching, so she twists to grasp his hand right back.

“Tessa,” she manages with quite some difficulty, what with her contorted torso. This earns her a lopsided smile, warm and utterly friendly.

(She almost looks down from shyness, almost registers the way something flips in her chest, almost feels a little more at home, when all she has felt since moving to New York was overwhelming loneliness and nerves. Almost.)

“Well, nice to meet you, Tessa. Do you mind if I move here?” He gestures to the spot beside her, then leans in, a little conspiratorially: “Madame Marina can get a little cranky on Thursdays, and she likes to take it out on me,” he half whispers, half apologizes in advance, winking at her.

Tessa’s thirteen-year-old brain doesn’t short-circuit, because she has always been more self-possessed and mature than the average teenager. But that doesn’t mean she can manage something more cool than, “Sure.” And perhaps a smile that looks a bit forced, if only to hide the screaming havoc in her nerves at being the new girl in the most prestigious ballet academy this side of the country. Perhaps even this side of the world.

The moment Marina Zoueva steps into the studio, a blanket of hushed respect descends, and all thirty or so noisy teenagers automatically fall into their places at the barres. Tessa’s focus is razor sharp, her heart a little shaky, a little excited, as it usually is when she’s faced with strange new circumstances. But she lets the first notes of the pianoforte calm her down, guide her into a more relaxed state as they do pliés.

Class proceeds as usual: warmup, tendus, stretches. Tessa gets lost in the movements usually in the first halves of the exercise, before she has to turn around and do the left side with Scott, Turnout Boy himself, right in front of her…

His stance is, as she would have guessed, impeccable. His alignment utterly enviable, the curves of his shoulder and back muscles behind his sweat-stained white shirt bearing evidence of intense years of practice. And Tessa is no stranger to great dancers, not at all… But it’s the way he moves that imprints itself in her mind; the strength behind the grace, the flow behind the precision. Her breath catches, sometimes, momentarily, when she observes how he would interpret the music through even the most basic of exercises, his movements speaking the same language as the theme of the various pieces.

She is both mesmerized and intimidated.

Then come the center exercises, the turns, the traveling across from one end of the studio to the other, round and round as the swells of the pianoforte crash over them like melodic waves, pulling their limbs to the rhythm. She is certainly more at home here, moving across the floor instead of having been distracted ( _compromised, weird, unprofessional, lame and stupid_ , the words pass by in a flurry during her chaîné turns, because her mental thesaurus enjoys entertaining various articulations of her embarrassment) during barre exercises; she really shouldn’t have let him pick the spot beside her, she half jokes to herself.

It is over too soon, and suddenly, it’s time to practice with partners. Tessa finds herself preferring the corner, again, a little wary all of a sudden. She can tell that the boys are far outnumbered, five to one, and her inexperience is glaringly obvious to her now, how little she knows of the etiquette when dancing with what seems to be a roster of incredibly gifted male dancers.

She can feel her heart protest against her ribcage; she is unlike the other girls, who she presumes have had lots of practice with male partners. She, on the other hand…

The girls start falling in orderly groups, and they all seem to know what to do: each boy suddenly has a cluster of girls waiting to be spun, and Tessa starts to panic, just a little. Just a bit.  _There aren’t rules to which girl goes with which partner, right?_ She’s probably overthinking it, but the thought of embarrassing herself on her first day in class is nothing short of traumatizing…

And that’s when she sees it: Scott, intently looking at her from the mirror.

She smiles shyly to acknowledge.

He raises both his eyebrows gently, a question whispered through the reflection.

She immediately breaks eye contact, looks down, feels a little ridiculous. He must have noticed her discomfort. Which means everyone else probably did too. Which means—

The music starts, and it’s not rocket science to understand how the exercise goes. She observes, mentally catalogues the steps in time with the rhythm. (She can be pretty neurotic sometimes, she muses, and gently chides herself for panicking. As per usual.)

But because the universe is as uncanny as it is deliberate, as luck would have it, Tessa is the very last girl in the exercise. She can feel all eyes on her as she steps up to Scott, grateful for the music that directs her movements and distracts her from the almost overwhelming sense of self-consciousness clawing at her focus.

(Distracts herself from his form, and the way she feels calmer with him behind her, the way his hands fit gently in the spaces between the melody, the way the warmth feels on her leotard, and how she isn’t at all as uncomfortable as she was expecting to be. Not at all.)

She spins, with his hands on her waist, guiding her and pushing the momentum. And that would be that, except the music suddenly stops. They as the last two dancers at center stop to see Marina, arms folded against her chest.

“Again,” Marina says, and she almost doesn’t hear it but Scott guides her and they both wait for the swell of the music, to start the exercise again. Tessa’s hands are starting to sweat, wondering what she was doing wrong, and  _Oh God, am I doing this all wrong? Are my steps correct? Is my timing_ —

“Great. That’s great, Tess,” Scott whispers between beats, and she relaxes minutely, before Marina tells them to do it again.

And again.

And again.

The class is truly paying attention now.

Finally, Marina does not abruptly tell the pianist to stop and restart, and the exercise ends, as it should have, the first seven times. Tessa is, by now, gasping for breath but desperately trying not to seem like it. Scott’s hand instinctively comes up to the small of her back, him right behind her, panting as well, as they “exit” from the exercise away from center. They both look to Marina when it’s done, and Tessa is expecting the worst, can feel their teacher’s eyes scrutinizing her, painfully unreadable…

“That was good first time. That was very good,” Marina says, calmly. Her thick Russian accent betraying absolutely no trace of feeling whatsoever. Tessa is not sure how to read the compliment until she feels Scott squeeze her elbow, and sees him trying to hold back a triumphant smile.

And while the class proceeds as usual, Tessa can’t help but tend to search for his eyes, always, a glance, a small smile, a smirk, a reassurance, a compliment, a gesture that says _this way_  or  _that way_. It is day one, and she is glad for a friend.

(And the small, secret language they start to write between the swells of the pianoforte, the first of many pages in a partnership that would span their years.)


	2. Come un fiore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (So, he’s a little protective. Sue him.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As per usual: I know nothing, just the surface of things, kindly suspend all your disbelief on the hangers provided to your right...
> 
> As per usual: RPF is not my thing, has never been my thing, but welp.
> 
> And also: I use a name here because it is a recognizable name in the context of the fandom, but that name in no way has any bearing on the real-life character or situation of any similarly-named ex, bless her soul. 
> 
> No hate, just love and fiction. <3
> 
> Thank you for the best people, who have encouraged me to pursue this story. I love you. <3
> 
> And finally: comments would be suuuper appreciated!!!! <3<3<3

Einstein once said that dancers are the athletes of God. Scott would have to agree.  
  
That’s because Scott also knows that, in the Gadbois Academy of Dance and the Arts, God is a woman.  
  
A strict, brilliant, Russian woman who makes history in her spare time, weaves movement and momentum to make masterpieces, and knows how to create greatness out of the shoddy, makeshift foundations of prepubescent boys like himself, eight years ago. She’s _great_ , Scott thinks. Really, really great, sans the sarcasm trying to worm its way in.  
  
He has to repeat this to himself as he balances on one leg (he imagines the ball of his right foot has grown roots now, deep into the hardwood floor, he is totally one with the studio, he might as well sprout a barre out of his ass), with Marina—or as some like to say it, _God herself_ —pacing back and forth in cat-like austerity, waiting for the next boy to drop.  
  
Andrew and Chiddy have already lost their balance, Charlie most recently too, and now it’s only him and Guillaume who are beside the barres, torturing themselves with the consequences for playing hooky one inconsequential afternoon last week. He just needs to stay on balance for the next… maybe, ten minutes?  
  
Which is to say, he has been on balance (you can touch the barre for only four seconds at a time, never to lean on it, because the Russians are intense like that) for the last fifty minutes. He thinks. Well, he _hopes_. A bit difficult to check the time when one's energy to live is draining pitifully by the second. That, of course, and he would rather _die a virgin sacrifice’s death_ than lose his chance at being Albrecht in this season’s upcoming Academy production of _Giselle_ , if only he could impress their Premier Maître de ballet in this little… exercise.  
  
(Granted, it would only be an understudy position, but at seventeen, he’ll take what he can get. He _will_ be the youngest principal dancer the company has ever seen… even if he has to rip his calves to get there.)  
  
(So, he’s a little competitive. Sue him.)  
  
“Up, Cizeron. Up,” Marina scolds, as Gui starts to compromise on his relevé. Scott takes a deep breath and straightens his spine.  
  
Sweat has been trickling down his temples for the better part of the hour, and there’s a puddle near his feet, and his calves are burning to the point of numbness. He hopes to heaven none of the girls walk by the open studio door to witness him in this gross state, his shirt soaked and stuck to his skin, muscles shaking, ego a little bruised because playing hooky is only cool if you don’t get caught.  
  
(He really, really doesn’t want one particular girl to walk by and see him like this, and is tempted for the briefest of moments to mitigate this risk by dropping out.)  
  
“Hey Moir,” Charlie tosses him the whisper with great accuracy, just as Marina leaves the room to answer a call.  
  
“What do you want, Chuck.” Scott has very little focus to spare right now. He feels a line of sweat drip into his eyes.  
  
“I heard God herself asked your ice princess to audition for _Giselle_. But as, like, the watermill or something,” he says, and Chiddy and Andrew look really amused, and even Gui sounds like he’s trying really hard not to laugh. Now, Scott knows that it’s just general sport to try to throw one another off. But he is having _none of that shit_.  
  
(None of that throwing him off his game part, and especially not the “Tessa is an ice queen who doesn’t want to hang out with anybody” part. And no, she’s not his “ice princess”, whatever that means, but he doesn’t like it either way. Doesn’t appreciate the smartass who coined the term and spread it around like the bullshit that it is, and if there’s one thing he just hates in this beloved world of his, it’s the back-biting and the truly underhanded shit that _some_ people are capable of pulling, if only to break other dancers’ morale. More specifically, other dancers who are _leagues_ ahead of everyone else in terms of work ethic and passion...)  
  
(So, he’s a little protective. Sue him.)  
  
“Yeah? That so?” Scott scoffs, as much as his physical circumstances allow, balancing on the ball of his foot for fifty-three minutes. “Heard Tanith been frenching that Australian guy she’s been seeing all weekend. Saw them myself last Satur—"  
  
“ _What?!_ "  
  
Gui full-on bursts laughing, loses his balance and grabs the barre for purchase. Andrew and Chiddy give up pretense of not being interested and their laughters bounce off the empty studio. Charlie still looks shell-shocked, before gruffly chuckling too. But Scott holds his position.  
  
And this is how Marina finds them: four dancers in stitches, with Scott as the last man standing.  
  
“What is meaning of this? You four, back to barre! One more hour for you! Yes, Moir. You too."

* * *

  
He is limping quite pathetically when he walks into the studio for class the next morning, but he scans around and locks eyes with the rest of the gang from yesterday. It would seem that the five of them are a committee of misery, and he feels a little better. As Adam does likes to say: “Batshits of a feather flock together."  
  
This temporary buoyancy dissipates, however, the moment he takes his spot beside Tessa, at their usual corner of the studio.  
  
“Hey, T! What’s u—hey, hey, what’s wrong?"  
  
Tessa doesn’t even look up, because she is busy sewing on her pointe ribbons, her fingers shaky even with her laser-focus on the task at hand. Scott can see her fingertips have red smudges on them, and can hazard to guess that she’s poked herself one too many times, in her hurry probably.  
  
“What happened? Where are your pointes?"  
  
“Can’t find them.”  
  
It’s the calm, quiet tone, the hush that wraps around her syllables, that has him worried.  
  
“What do you mean?” he asks again, because he can’t _not_ care, even when she seems like she doesn’t want him to.  
  
But just like that, Igor has entered the premises and all the students are scrambling to get to their places. Tessa hurriedly shoves away her needle and thread, puts her shoes on (she can do it in twenty-two seconds, he’s timed her before), and while Igor is already impatient with Tessa’s delay, Scott doesn’t move an inch to take his place until Tessa has fully collected herself off the floor to join him.  
  
Class proceeds as usual, after Igor’s stern comments about the evils of unpreparedness, and how studio time is sacred, etc.  
  
Scott doesn’t hear the words, not really. He’s too busy trying to get a read on Tessa, who doesn’t seem to budge on her “no expression” policy. Not when he tries to raise his eyebrows at her through the mirrors, not even when he toes her ankle during tendus, and it’s silly, how much it rankles him to no end. _It’s because I never..._ not _know what’s going on with her_ , he tells himself, and finds it a mildly acceptable answer, in as much as it is only half true.  
  
He tries again during stretches:  
  
“Psst. Hey,” he says, shooting the words to her as quietly as he can, trying to get her to pay attention. She is struggling with balancing en pointe (her new shoes aren’t broken in yet), her right hand grasping her left ankle above her head.  
  
She glares at him through their reflections in the mirror. _What?_  
  
He crinkles his eyebrows at her in concern. _Are you okay?_  
  
To this, she simply breaks eye contact, looks down, and then looks straight ahead with a determined, almost casual stare. Scott would groan, but his concern overpowers his exasperation.  
  
(So, he’s a little persistent. Sue him.)  
  
When he sees her wince—a tiny, almost imperceptible gesture—on her last measure of piqué pirouettes across the room, he has absolutely had it. He waits until the class is dismissed before marching straight towards her.  
  
“T?”  
  
He times his question with a gentle touch to her shoulder as she is just about to untie her ribbons, barely held together with poor stitching. It does the trick; she stills, stands up. He takes her in: the hard eyes, trying to gently hop from foot to foot, the hand on her hip, looking everywhere and nowhere at once...  
  
_Oh._ She is upset… and out of it.  
  
Which, of course, makes _him_ deeply upset; the thought eats at him, worse than the not knowing, because Tessa Virtue is a lot of things, but “unnerved” is not one of them. So he takes her shoulders, out of instinct (or habit, it doesn’t matter).  
  
“Breathe... Tess, breathe.”  
  
And she does. Takes a deep breath. And another one, and another, as he runs his hands along her arms, until she gently, softly leans her forehead on his collarbone with a huff, and finally. His arms come up around her shoulders in an embrace. There is something fulfilling about this tactility, this secret language they’ve built through their skins, always as a special kind of last resort. Motion is emotion, after all, and they are dancers first, before they are anything else.  
  
“What’s going on, kiddo? Talk to me,” he says by her hairline. He can smell her strawberry shampoo.  
  
Tessa pulls away, then she's biting the edge of her distress, gaze set somewhere to his left. “Someone stole my shoes,” she says after a beat, still not looking at him.  
  
He doesn’t ask if she’s sure, because she’s Tessa. And he knows, things like these are not uncommon, he understands that. He’s heard and witnessed far too many stories to be surprised, of what a person is capable of when you give them a lifelong dream and a hundred other people who are fighting for it. He’s known many, many talents who’ve given up when they couldn’t handle the “pressure”, when what’s behind the curtains aren’t always pretty, or fair. People do what people do; it’s a thing, it happens. It’s shady, it’s wrong, but it happens.  
  
He knows this. But that doesn’t make him less upset about it.  
  
“Oh—kay,” Scott says, slowly, curdling his anger behind his tongue.  
  
When she looks at him, her eyes are _so_ green. He's so fucking pissed.

  
“Okay. I mean, what?! What kind of asshole—I mean, really, that’s just—” he starts, but he is abruptly cut off by a kiss on his cheek and very long arms that wrap around his shoulders from behind.  
  
“Hey babe,” says the voice, and he first registers that Tessa suddenly can’t look at him, before he registers that his girlfriend just said hi.  
  
“Oh, hey. Cassie, hey.” He hugs her, she kisses him, and he manages a smile but if he’s being honest to himself (which, according to Eric and at least three other people, doesn’t happen very often) he’s still quite upset.  
  
“Hey, Tessa Jane.” Cassie turns her greeting to Tessa, who manages a smile, but still can’t quite look at them. And he wants her to look at him, wants to read what’s going on in her eyes, wants to talk about this, wants to kick someone’s ass...  
  
But Cassie pulls him away with something about his social obligations for the evening, and if he’s being honest, and maybe for once he’ll be honest, he doesn’t want to go.  
  
He goes anyway. As he is whisked off to dinner with his friends, he thinks about her small wave of goodbye the whole time.

* * *

  
_Mon amour je t'attendrai toute ma vie..._  
  
The French lyrics sing themselves in his head as soon as he recognises the tune drifting from the studio, in this late, brittle hour of the weeknight. He remembers the first time he had watched that movie with her, one quiet Thursday evening in her dormitory during her first year, when he had still been too worried about her "new girl" status. He didn’t want to watch it, couldn’t find it in himself to pretend to be excited about a decades-old musical in another language, but he sat through it anyway, for her.  
  
(She didn’t comment on the tears he was wiping away afterwards, just sent him the lyrics of the song he had cried to, in both French and English. He had learned most of it by heart.)  
  
_Je ne peux pas, je ne peux pas, je ne peux pas..._  
  
She is on the floor when he peers inside, her head resting on her knees, her body folded neatly on itself, her back shiny from her usual hour or so of extra practice, her eyes closed, her breaths deep. He stays, leaning by the door frame, lets a minute pass, maybe three. When her eyes open, it opens to him with a tired, warm smile.  
  
_Mon amour (je’t aime, je’t aime)..._  
  
His own breaks across his face, along with a familiar kind of affection, cascading in very quiet ripples.  
  
“Hey, kiddo.”  
  
She extends a limp hand to him, too tired to do anything else. His feet follow, until he is taking her fingertips and sitting beside her. “Sorry, couldn’t practice with you today,” he tells her, because it was all he could think about the whole evening, how much he wished he was at the barres with her, sweating his life away instead of eating overpriced pastrami salad with his girlfriend and her non-dancer friends.  
  
(Not that he practices with her _all_ the time. Even if he wants to, if he were being honest with himself—which is a rare-enough occurrence, Chiddy once joked).  
  
“Mmmph.” She makes a sound of assent— _it’s fine, no worries_ —muffled when she turns her head into her tights, trying to get a few more seconds of shuteye. He pulls on the wisps of hair at the nape of her neck, loose out of her bun.  
  
“Hey,” he says, and then he sees her feet. “ _Jesus christ_ , Tess."  
  
She looks up at him then, wiggles her toes. He can see the blood and bruises, the flaps of skin starting to fall off the fresh blisters, the places where the tape was of no use. He doesn’t even want to know what’s going on with her toenails.  
  
“I know. They’re really gross, aren’t they?” She says as a response to his grimace. Bright and amused and with no small amount of pride, wiggling her big toe and the flap of tape that’s come undone.  
  
There are so many—too many—things he admires about her, not the least of which is her unparalleled drive, the crazy passion, the kind that pulls him in and doesn’t let go. The kind that finds it amusing that her toes have to go through hell because some jerk decided to fuck with her stuff.  
  
Which he’s still pretty upset about.  
  
“What happened?” He wants to pull her in and keep her close again, but he’s also thinking, maybe that’s a bit much right now. So he settles on rubbing the back of her neck. She leans into his touch all the same; out of instinct or habit, it doesn’t matter. And it almost works, almost, but he asks her again, and she deflates, sinks and stretches into her legs, avoiding the question.  
  
“T, c’mon. It’s just me."  
  
“It’s fine, it doesn’t matter—"  
  
“Don’t. Don’t do that.” Because he hates it, fucking _hates_ it when… whatever, he doesn’t know why he hates it, why it runs so deeply in his bones whenever she closes herself off like this. He’d like to think she would trust him enough, just like he trusts her, and the thought of—the mere, hypothetical concept of Tessa not trusting him (of this friendship, this connection, being somewhat imaginary, in a way) is… unthinkable. But he’s not going to _say_ any of that.  
  
“Don’t shut me out,” comes out in a breath instead, unfiltered and unintentional, but whatever.  
  
She pulls away the fingers he had been turning over in his own, before sitting up and closer beside him, and he adjusts so she’s closer still, a hand wrapping around her shoulders, her head leaning into the crook of his neck. All his thoughts dissipate, and all is right in the world again, because she can read him too well, too.  
  
“Okay, but… don’t be mad,” she says, before she inches her fingertips back into his again. He puts a playful kiss on her knuckles, like they just ended a practice pas de deux on a regular class day.  
  
“Depends. You gonna tell me whose ass I gotta kick? Or you gonna make me guess?"  
  
“She’s older,” Tessa says, hesitant and in a quiet that is different from the kind of quiet he knows her for. “I don’t—I think she doesn’t like me very much.” But Tessa stops here, and lets the silence twine around them as she looks down at the fingertips he’s playing with.  
  
“Mhmm. So you gonna tell me or...”  
  
He tickles her on the ribs with the arm around her shoulders, and she giggles, pinches his side, and they’re at it again, and it’s another language altogether, another conversation, another world with her, whether it’s by the barres in excruciating discipline or on the floor in heaps, wrapped in laughter and in each other. Their joy echoes off the empty studio and _This is my favorite_ , Scott thinks, in the midst of his mirth. _This is my favorite thing about being here. Moments like these with you._  
  
“It was—It’s Cassie,” Tessa says, in between peals of hiccupped giggles. She looks at him, smiling and unbothered, happy, and he cannot find it in himself to be upset at the information, not with her lying beside him on the floor of their favorite midnight studio, after an asthma-inducing tickle fight. “It’s Cassie, Scott,” Tessa says again, only slightly more serious. And then: “I don’t—I don’t think she likes me very much."  
  
Scott makes an exaggerated face, because this is far too close a conversation to all the things he doesn’t want to be said. “What? What’s not to like?"  
  
“You deserve better."  
  
The words are sudden. Warm and fond, quiet and resolute. He finds her looking at him, really looking at him, like all he’s every done in his seventeen years of living was to hear those words from a pretty girl who has no business saying them.  
  
“You deserve someone as kind as you are,” Tessa adds, like she were reading off an interesting Times Square billboard.  
  
He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what to make of the crash of his heartbeat or the strange surge of… _something_ , desperately trying to break through his non-existent self-awareness.  
  
“I’m just being honest,” Tessa adds once more, as though on cue by his own thoughts. “I think you—you deserve someone really kind and… and I don’t know..."  
  
He kisses her knuckles to cut off her stuttering, stands up abruptly and picks her up off the floor, changes gears and switches topics for the rest of the evening. Ignores (perhaps for the first time, perhaps for the hundredth) the way he wants to never see her uncomfortable or out of her element. Relying, instead, on their tactile language, his last resort.  
  
They are dancers first, before they are anything else, after all.  
  
(If "anything else" was ever anything to go by, in the first place.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story will likely take a different format in the ff chapters, because there's a lot I want to tell and it's not always going to be slice-of-life snippets. 
> 
> This chapter brought to you by "Umbrellas of Cherbourg" and "Come un fiore". 
> 
> also, comments are loooved and appreciated. :)
> 
> come yell at me in tumblr: reyreyalltheway
> 
> xoxo  
> —Katie
> 
> tessa_kisses.gif


	3. Oltremare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are some things that come very easily to Tessa Virtue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, please kindly suspend your disbelief on the hangers provided to your right... :)

There are some things that come very easily to Tessa Virtue.

When she was seven years old, it was the way her shoulders and hips lined up perfectly, spine reaching for the skies beyond her beginner’s ballet class. Her teachers noticed.

When she was eleven years old, it was her alignment, _en pointe_. She would be able to balance beautifully on her pointe shoes better than any of the teenagers in her advanced class (only because she did nothing but dance, in her spare time, in her kitchen, on the too-smooth floor of her bedroom even though she’d slip too often, happily hopping on her blisters so they’d form callouses sooner, her feet practicing their arches in her shoes as she daydreamed about dancing to Swan Lake while Ms. Montgomery droned on about the Mongolians in far-off China, or something else that she’d only remember in time for exams).

Then she was twelve, and it was the alignment of the stars in the form of a summer at the National Ballet of Canada; five days in, and she knew—just knew, like breathing that air made her inhale a penchant for a professional career—that she was destined for a life of three-hour bursts of beauty on stage.

And then she was thirteen, and in the aftermath of a few small regional dance competitions, her mom had called her downstairs to discuss a letter, with a return address in New York.

She was thirteen and packing up her bags to join the best ballet school in America.

She was thirteen, and suddenly, there are some things don’t come as easily.

Where once she was a unique little snowflake, now she is one of what seems to be a million other unique snowflakes in a little snowstorm in the Arctic; everyone’s got something special going for them, and Tessa doesn’t know what she’s supposed to feel. What she does feel is that perhaps this is a mistake, and all the things that don’t come easily to her—making friends, being social, sucking up to the teachers, flirting with the boys, holding her _penchés_ because she doesn't have naturally hyper-extended legs and she has to work hard to keep that fact from showing—take center stage in her mental auditorium. Suddenly, her little world of ballet isn’t so little anymore and...

“…sometimes, I think—I think maybe this isn’t for me,” she tells Scott one day at the cafeteria, four years later, a passing statement amidst the mindless chatter of lunchtime buzzing around them. She smiles at the lunch lady who gives her half of a sugar-free chocolate brownie usually reserved for the principal dancers, not realizing what she’s said until she turns and sees him: stock-still behind her in line, pulling an exaggerated expression.

She giggles at his antics, then is promptly overcome with embarrassment.

( _Oh god, did I just mention my insecurities while in line for gluten-free, low-carb pasta?_ )

She tries to move along, more interested in staring at her quinoa salad than him.

“You’re not se—are you, are you serious? Is that, like, an actual thought you get? Thanks, Linda,” he says, coming up squarely behind her as Linda the Lunch Lady gives him a brownie too. He winks at Linda, charming and disarming, and she gives him one more brownie with an exasperated eye-roll. _This is the last time, Moir,_  even though it never is.

“I mean, I guess?” Tessa says, and it sounds small even to her ears as she shrugs backwards, bumping her head lightly against his form behind her. She doesn't wantto talk about it, but he’s shaking his head, his face turning from disbelieving to inscrutable.

“I dunno what to say to you, Tess,” he tells her as they pick up their trays and head to their usual table. He doesn’t add much more to that, and then they get lost in stories about some of the new faces auditioning to the school (“Oh my god, you should have seen the Russian transplants! They fucking _killed_ it.”), about Igor and Marina's latest 'creative differences' spat (“She wants to open a few lead parts up for audition.” “No shit, really?” “Yeah, but Igor’s, like, losing it, man.”), the latest gossip with the higher-level principal dancers (“Did you hear about Pelletier?” “Ew, no. Please don’t, Kait. He’s always kinda creeped me out.”). He's laughing along with everyone else, eyes crinkling with his warmth and normally, she’d giggle along with him, but her brain is off doing its own thing today.

( _I don’t know what to say to you_ replays over and over in her mind, and she quietly resents the translation that goes _I don’t know how to say how maybe you’re right, you’re not that good, maybe you should try a career in law?_ …)

Something nudges her foot, surprising her out of her reverie. She looks up from her very focused study of the tomatoes in her salad, and of course it’s Scott.

Leaning back on his chair, arms folded in front of him, staring at her with that look. The one he gives her every time she's lost in her own thought.

The same one he had given her, that one time she had told him that she admired Meryl’s lean and lithe body, but she wouldn’t explain further, and he had leaned against the doorframe of the empty women’s dressing room after the show, not talking, just giving her that look, patiently waiting for her to open up until she explained how much she loved chocolates but was very careful about her weight because it’s not easy, okay? People always say that you just have to work really hard in ballet and you’ll get better but what they don’t say is that some people—less gifted, less naturally talented, _less like you, Scott_ is what she doesn’t voice out—have to work harder than anyone else just to be good enough and it’s a little unfair because, she loves ballet. Loves it with all her heart, and she loves it so, so much, but sometimes, just sometimes, when she sees the bodies and the technique and the unholy leg extensions and flawless pirouettes of other dancers, _when I see you,_ she gets sad and thinks hey, maybe ballet doesn’t love me back. At least, not as much as it loves other dancers. 

And Scott had just stared at her for a beat, calm and listening. And then had nodded. And that was that on that.

Which was two weeks ago, but it’s the same expression he’s wearing now. She doesn’t know what he’s trying to say here, which is... okay, she’s had four years experience in the many facial statements of Scott Moir, after all. It makes her sadder, somehow, the not-knowing, but she shoves that little feeling away for some other time.

“Oh my God, Scott, you didn’t. You _did not,_ ” Kaitlyn says at random, in the middle of Chiddy’s story about the new Russian girl four batches younger. She looks up from her phone, all excessively aghast. Scott turns his attention to her, merely shrugs. “ _You stood her up!?_ You’re such an asshole—"

“ _What?!”_ Scott bursts, affronted. _“_ How was I supposed to know she was still coming?! I waited two hours, Kait. Two. I mean, I know I’m late to rehearsals sometimes but at least I have a good grip on _reality.”_ It comes out like a long, defensive squeak, and Tessa fights back a giggle. The rest of their table proceed to discuss the merits and demerits of getting set up with one of Kaitlyn’s blond cousins, and the ethical ramifications of Scott’s dating habits. Insults are thrown, anecdotes shared like "Exhibit A: Scott is, let’s face it, _a cutie,”_ Adam declared, to which half of the ladies boo loudly. (“Just ask Tessa!” Adam adds, which incurs more boos and a few _ok, that’s valid_ claps. Tessa laughs. This is nothing she isn’t used to.)

In the midst of the loud lunchtime hubris, Scott tries to catch her eyes.

She smiles at him, hopes that it’s friendly enough. Happy and carefree enough. Misleading enough.

(Of course it’s not. Fat chance.)

She’s studiously picking on her cherry tomatoes when he gets up, quietly leaving a brownie on her plate, before squeezing her shoulder as he leaves for rehearsals. He’s a company member now, part of the _corps de ballet_. And she’s proud of him, she is, and it’s no surprise; he’s so incredibly gifted after all. But still...

Her sigh sounds too much like the last four years: unbearably soft and unspoken.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

There are some things that come easily to Tessa Virtue.

Even though they really shouldn’t.

Like, breaking and entering into the backstage of the New York City Center, for instance.

(Well, “breaking and entering” might be quite a stretch compared to  _learning a neat little shortcut through the staff pantry,_ but there’s a great story.)

Because other dancers have their backhanded techniques, their little itching powders and silly gossip and slight of hand; she’s learned from two years ago to place padlocks in all her bags, always carry a spare of literally everything, plus some. Don’t turn your back, trust no one (except maybe the boys, and even then, only a few), don’t give them anything to hold against you, etc. There are hundreds of students, and not everyone will get a shot at getting into the company. Sure, she’s one of the handful few that might— _maybe_ —get in, she wasn't going to settle for some secondhand chance at her dream after all. And they’re all friends, sure, but she’s going to play it all close to the chest anyway. She knows how it goes.

Tessa would _never_ do those awful things, though. And run the risk of getting expelled? _Please._

She’s a little smarter than that, thank you very much. 

No risk is worth the risk of losing her standing in the school. She’s not here to _eliminate_ the competition; why would she, if she didn’t need to?

What she does—what she’s good at—is take every opportunity to get better than everyone else, _before_ anyone else. Even if she has to bribe Chiddy with two weeks' supply of Starbucks to teach her where and how she could sneak into the latest company production, like a true con-woman.

( _“Con-woman? That is_ not _a thing, Tutu,” Scott had said, perched on her bed where she had been helping him review for the GED, absently biting the end of his pencil while she waits for him to finish a practice test for statistics._

_To which she had just smiled to herself, her mental gears turning, excitement buzzing at a new opportunity to up her game. Oh, it_ is _a thing. She’ll make it one.)_  

Which brings her here: backstage of the NYCC to carefully watch and take notes during the matinee show, standing in the wings in her nondescript leather jacket, her nose ruddy from the East Coast autumn, fingers numb from fumbling with the pantry door locks. She’s good friends with the stage manager, who looks at her disapprovingly. She throws him a peace sign and a sheepish,  _I’m-sorry-but-I’m-not-super-sorry_ smile, one that makes him shake his head and look the other way. 

Purple and blue lights bathe the stage in ethereal shadows, she can see the dancers’ sweat-shiny skin, the tight, neon costumes lining their muscles, their long body lines brisk with jumps in a jazzy, modern interpretation of Gershwin’s _Rhapsody in Blue_. Marie-France and Patrice—her absolute favorite principal dancers and the kindest, most put-together adults she has ever known—grace the stage as the leads with sublime characterisation, performing an effortlessness that only principal dancers seem to master. Tessa stays mostly hidden somewhere in the corner of the wings, as close to the back curtains as possible. Tries to be unobtrusive to the dancers flitting in and out of the stage, making mental notes in tidy columns in her mind: _Things I should work on (Those are big leaps, I should work on my jumps), Things I shouldn’t do (That is terrible pointe-work, how did she get into the company?), Things that would give me an edge (They look so tired, I should probably work on my performance stamina), Things that—_

“Tess? What’re you doing here?"

Scott’s voice makes her jump, clinging to the ancient and dirty stage curtains.

“Oh! Oh my God, Scott, you scared me,” she says, and _thank goodness_ it’s just Scott and not Igor or Marina or some other surprise from hell.

He’s looking at her with disbelief and a little amusement, his temples shining with perspiration. “I should say the same for you… What’re you—actually, hold that thought.”

And then, before she knows it, he’s bounding onto the stage, ears ever so attuned to his cues in the music, and she watches him plunge into the ocean of blue and lilac stage lights, the ultramarine shadows sculpting stories from his movements. Watches him perform, and _it’s a solo!_ , and she has to do a double-take because she didn’t know he was performing a solo, and they’d always promised that they’d watch each others’ first solo performances as company members, but her heart warms anyway because  _This is Scott’s first company solo!,_ and of all the days she could be sneaking into backstage to watch, it would be this one. 

With his every leap and turn, he’s completely one with the music, propelling his body into the air with power and precision, his command of space and timing, the music, the lights. She can’t look away...

_Things that captivate me (Scott, always.)_

His solo ends to raucous applause, and she’s clapping too, her heart flooding with so much fondness.

He exits stage right and goes straight to her.

“As—as I was—As I was saying,” he says between pants, and Tessa wants to giggle at how ridiculous he is, and how _ridiculously good_ that was. “What’re you…?” comes out breathless, a puzzled look and a lopsided smile that turns something warm and wonderful in Tessa’s insides.

“Oh, I’m doing research,” she says, standing there, fully aware of the giddy smile that breaks her face in half, before: “Scott, that was amazing, you didn’t tell me you had a solo!” she bursts, because it’s true but she’s only mildly upset about not knowing before now. They do tell each other  _everything_ , but that was such an amazing performance and she’s brimming with pride and she really wants to hug him, this awfully large feeling taking up too much space in her chest. So she does.

“I didn’t know either, I just got pulled in to— _oof..."_

“I’m so proud of you. I’m so, so proud of you!” She tells him from the sweaty crook of his neck, because watching him live his dream feels strangely like it’s hers, too.

He finally regains from his surprise and hugs her back, cocooning her in warmth. “Thanks. Thanks, T.” 

And if she holds on a little longer, if she closes her eyes and feels so, so much of something that she can’t quite name, if there’s a small fear that tells her _it won’t always be like this, you won’t always be this close,_ if there’s a sadness that clutches at her, at the thought that she’s only one of his hundred admirers, if she pulls back shyly, if she just wants to memorise the way his eyes crinkle in the darkness of the stage wings like he was smiling just for her, well.

He doesn’t need to know any of that.

 

 

 

* * *

There are some things that come easily to Tessa Virtue.

Well, there are _many,_ Scott had once insisted. Too many to count, he had said, and she thinks he was just being kind because he couldn’t think of one on the spot. She didn’t hold it against him, merely laughed and threw a french fry at his face, calling him a liar as Kaitlyn and Andrew joined in teasing, and he had blushed in his signature hue of lobster red. She still finds it amusing how easily his mood could change, from boisterous to blushing, to her endless amusement. He had sulked at her giggles until she bought him a chocolate milkshake, and he had happily accepted her peace offering, knowing full well she would be sipping half of it. So yeah, being around Scott was one of those things that came easily to her.

But another thing was being competitive.

(Andrew once commented that he never would have guessed about her ambitious streak behind that picture-perfect smile. Scott had rolled his eyes so hard, it went back in time. “You have no idea,” he had said. Tessa properly stuck her tongue out at him before proceeding to practice her sixty-four fouettés. She had a record to break, so  _whatever, Scott._ )

It’s not, okay, it’s _not_ like she’d put itching powder in other dancers’ shoes before auditions, or steal their ribbons, or make a conspiratorial snip at a button on their costumes, _goodness_. Just thinking about those makes her cringe; Scott has called her paranoid on more than one occasion, but honestly, she’s just really prepared. Anyway:

And it’s not even about being better than everyone else, not at all.

It’s just that… seeing anyone better than her means that there’s still _so much_ … Steps to learn, dances to master, elements to a ballet narrative. There are areas where she’s not good enough yet. On a lot of days, she's buzzing with a drive so electric and raw and excited, she can't wait to beat her body to a pulp if only to see how far she can push her own limits. But on some days...

_Not good enough._

The words echo bitterly in the stillness of the studio, nine a.m. on a Saturday. _Not good enough,_ says the frantic pace of her beating heart, to the tune of exhaustion after her twelfth run. _Not good enough,_ she thinks, as she takes deep breaths with the mental backdrop of Scott’s gorgeous solo performance last week, and the warmth and pride that she had felt watching him. She had gone home that evening and sat in her living room—the one she shared with Kait and Madi who had been out for the evening, _thank God they had social lives_ —playing with a bottle of white wine and her own calculating thoughts. She had analysed her own analysis, coming to only one conclusion: sitting there moping about the possibility of not being good enough, isn’t going to make her good enough.

So she had straightened up, put away her Sauvignon Blanc, and had rooted through her cabinets for an old DVD of Don Quixote, pen and paper on hand so she could relearn every step, every tic, all the expressions of what made a lead role for this ballet that was rumored to be staged next season. She needed a goal. Goals are what she’s good at.

The next day had been about practicing, and practicing, and practicing, with the singular goal of learning it better than anyone else. And the next day, and the next was the same. 

( _hey T, any plans tonight?_ Scott had messaged two days after his solo and her illegal little break-in, and if she’s upset that it took him two whole days before messaging, that she heard he’d been out with his friends first before even texting her about his awesome news, if she’s a little hurt, he doesn’t need to know that.)

( _Yep, actually. ;)_  she had replied. No lies here; she _did_ have plans. And it was to dance this Don Quixote variation until she killed it dead.)

Which finds her here in an empty studio, nine a.m. on a Saturday, five days later, a tiny bit cranky and achy all over, and not even close to nailing Kitri’s act one variation, because it just doesn’t _feel_ quite right yet, doesn’t feel perfect yet, maybe it’s the beat for the pirouettes? Or maybe it’s the balance and holds? She’s giving herself enough leeway to be patient with her own body and muscle memory, _she can do this, she can,_  she tells her frustration, itching to _dance, dance, dance_ it to perfection,and she believes that perfection is a real thing, if she could just—

“Don’t lean back."

Surprise makes her fall into a heap mid-turn, head snapping around to find the voice, and there he is. Of course. Hands crossed over his chest, leaning on the doorframe as he is warrant to do. His face like a downward wrinkle that said _I’m only mildly upset but would like to exaggerate it, like I normally do._

“Your form’s really good but you lean back after the third turn,” he adds, coming over to her.

“What are—what’re you—" Tessa pants, before Scott is helping her up.

“Here, let me."

She goes on _retiré en pointe,_ the square of her body sturdy in front of the mirror while Scott goes behind her. Her exhales are brisk in the heat of an hour’s worth of practice, but Scott doesn’t seem to mind. Not with the way he closes the distance behind her, wrapping an arm around her midsection, pulling her shoulder back with his other hand, looking at her through their reflection in the mirror, and there’s a certain kind of lightheadedness that overtakes her...

“Your balance is great,” he says by the jut of her shoulder, a voice near her ear, low and quiet and very, very steady, and she inclines her head to listen as her arm rests on his around her stomach. Like habit, like instinct. “But see,” his grip around her waist pulls her entire body backwards, towards him, impossibly closer, demanding a kind of trust that she has always so willingly given. And just like _that,_ she gets it. “You lean back and lose—"

“My alignment,” she finishes, focusing on her body, the way it feels, the way it memorizes how he’s holding her ever so subtly off her axis. The way her head fills with helium and her chest with very warm sparks.

“Yeah,” is breathed out like a secret, very close now, his eyes cast towards the column of her throat.

It lasts too long, and yet, too briefly; this temporary fit against one another, this intrinsic pull, as though everything they had ever done in the last four years was always just this: a way for their bodies to lend themselves to this gravity between them. A hundred little eternities across the last four years, moments scattered between the music, their undulating closeness skittering about her nerves, and if dance were something tangible, it would be him, _it would be Scott_...

He rights her back on her balance, gently, before too long has passed. Leaves a small kiss on her shoulder before loosening his hold and heading for the barres to warm up. Just like that, they’re best friends again, _nothing more,_ she tells herself. She stays on balance for a good few moments, regaining her focus and composure and dignity.

“How’d you find me?” She says, bringing the chirp into her tone and hoping it doesn’t sound overdone, catching her breath after her long balance.

( _It’s always a workout when you’re trying to chase your feelings for him away_ , said a voice in her head, sounding stupidly like her sister Jordan and _Nope_. She is _not_ going go there… )

“Your iPhone,” he says with a smirk from the barres, stretching his calves. She wants to giggle and roll her eyes because there is _no way_ he could do that without someone’s help; they both know he’s never been one with the 21st century. She had been the one to suggest they synced their phones’ locations through an app, after one too many times of him losing his after an evening’s bender. 

And then he adds: “You know, for someone who’s been ignoring me, you’re pretty easy to find."

She throws him a look. _Scott..._

He throws a look right back.  _Come on, you know it’s true._

She sighs because yes, of course it’s true. And this is his way of breaching this conversation, because of course he would. Scott can be emotional sometimes, but he’s never one to leave an issue deliberately undiscussed. And most times, she would agree. Except this time, because she’s not really sure what’s there to discuss...

She gets so lost in drawing circles with her shoes with every deep exhale, she doesn’t notice him coming up to her, and then he’s taking her into a warm embrace.

“You’re the best dancer I’ve ever seen,” he says by her hairline. Like habit, like instinct. “You’re my favorite partner, so don’t insult me by selling yourself short. You’re amazing."

“ _Scott…_ ” she says, muffled into his shirt, because _of course_ he would know what to say. _When has he ever let me down?_

“You are! You’re amazing. You work so hard and you put in the hours, and you break into theatres like a true con-woman and—"

Her laugh sounds loud into his shoulder and she’s trying to wriggle out of his hug, but he just holds on tighter, suffocating her with some kind of happiness she doesn’t dare name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ran a little longer, but I really enjoyed writing this. I needed to set the foundation before bringing in the big guns. 
> 
> Title comes from the Ludovico Einaudi piece of the same name. :) 
> 
> Please leave a comment if you guys enjoyed reading it too! <3


	4. Neptune

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are some things that come easily to Scott Moir. (These three words are not one of them.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And ya'll thought I had died. :))
> 
> As the summary suggests: this chapter skips across four years. It also jumps between events in past chapters, but if you guys pay attention to Scott's age, it should be a little easier to follow...
> 
> Or, it's just a mess in general haha. IM SO SORRY. :)

There are some things that come easily to Scott Moir.

The first is his turnout. It’s why Marina had spotted him that one time he took a ballet class, wasn’t it? Him at eight years old, more interested in ice hockey and just then discovering the power of cute girls and the fake news that is cooties. 

Ballet was easy. Well, not _easy,_ but it came naturally to him. He understood, as though on instinct, which muscle groups were in charge of which movements, how to align his body so it mastered the technicalities of Vaganova, and it wasn’t like Illderton had been overrun by male ballet dancers anyway. Being good at something felt great. It felt really great.

Making friends had been easy, too. Moving to New York when he was nine years old, Scott has never been a loner. Gadbois was a melting pot of the world’s future principal dancers; only the best of the best. If he could get in, his aunt argued, there’d be no reason not to take the opportunity. He auditioned. He got in. Suddenly, he’s thirteen and already the most promising, most beloved student in the school. It would seem that he’s destined to make his mark in the world of dance. The rest, as they say, should be history.

Except, it isn’t.

He is fifteen when he meets her.

He is fifteen and suddenly, there are some things that don’t come as easily.

* * *

 

.:.

It starts before either of them even knew what was happening. He is sixteen.

Sixteen years old and young, brash, on-top-of-the-world Scott has invincibility running through his veins. On a high from last week’s performance—his first “feature role” doing an excerpt from Don Quixote—he swaggers along the school hallways feeling like a king.

“Scott! Scott Moir! Hey!” He swings around, catches Connor—a year above him, but probably won’t be good enough to get into the Company, not that Scott would ever tell him that—calling him. He thinks it must be about his stellar performance of last week, when:

“Hey, man. Hey. Just wanted to ask,” he says, walking alongside Scott and an arm slinging around his shoulders, casual as ever. “Um, are you and Tessa… you know, uh. Are you guys dating?”

Scott did not expect that inquiry at all. 

“What?” he replies, voice tripping an octave higher in his surprise and puberty.

“You know, together? You guys are close, would you know if she’s, uh, single or something? Just for the record, you know.”

Scott stops dead in his tracks, a weird flavour of annoyance suddenly bubbling through his adolescent subconscious, looks at Connor with an expression that makes the other man physically back up, just a bit.

“Whoa, whoa, take it easy, man. It’s just a question—”

Just a question? Wow, that is so… _annoying._   

“Yeah? Well,” Scott says quite flatly, hiking his backpack up his shoulder in a subtle sign of _Get your hands off of me,_ “Why’re you asking me? If you weren’t such a chicken, maybe you could ask her yourself. I’m not her—We’re not an  _item,_ geez,” he spits out. Then he stalks away because he refuses to be in closer proximity to someone so…

“I was just asking! Out of respect! For 'The Canadians'!” Connor yells from behind him, which Scott studiously ignores.

Then feels a tad guilty for being so rude about, around thirty minutes later during Chemistry.  _The Canadians? The fuck was he on about?_ Scott thinks, chewing the stub metal end of his pencil into deformity. Mornings are for school, but at this rate of feeling absurdly disturbed about Connor's comments, he doesn’t think he’ll make it until classes in the afternoon...

“Something’s bothering you,” he hears Patrick Chan from beside him, not even looking up from measuring the sodium in his beaker.

“Hmm?”

“Did Tessa, like, not text back or something?”

Scott grimaces, pencil hanging from his mouth. “Tessa? Who said anything about Tessa?”

Patrick is unfazed. “So... it’s not about Tessa.”

“No! Well, yeah. I mean, no, I just—” He groans from where he buries his head in his hands, annoyed at how inadequate his communication skills have become.

Scott tries to explain that it’s not like… it’s  _Tessa_. She’s his _friend,_ his _best friend,_ even, not that he’d ever let his buddies know that.And he cares about her. He does, like he cares about Patrick and Chucky and, you know, Danny and Charlie. He thinks. She’s smart and sweet and made of steel. And she’s _crazy_ good at dancing too, and Scott doesn’t think he’s ever seen anyone as young as her _move_ the way she does, the way she just… _gets_ it, it’s a little mesmerizing to watch her sometimes, her arms and legs and body cutting lines and figures across the studio. Like space itself would bend backwards just to make way for her. Like time itself would stop, whenever Scott watches, and it’s just her, just Tessa, looking graceful and beautiful and absolutely just…

“…out of this world,” Scott ends. He realises Patrick is watching him, one eyebrow cocked in dry amusement.

Scott grimaces at him, because _what?!_

“Uh-huh,” Patrick finally says, resuming his attention on his beaker. “Now that we’ve established that Tessa is perfect… what does that have to do with why you’re so annoyed at Connor Lewis?”

“It’s the ‘Canadian' thing!”

“Ah. Yeah, the ‘Canadian’ thing. How can we forget about the ‘Canadian’ thing… what’s the ‘Canadian’ thing?”

Scott now turns to Patrick more fully, more serious. “Did you know people call us ‘The Canadians’?”

Patrick scoffs, turns to his experiment again. “Oh, that! Of course. Why? Didn’t you?”

“Wh— _No!_ ” 

A few other students turn to look at their table, and Ms. Morrison gives Scott a stern look. Meryl even shushes them. “I mean, no. No, I didn’t,” he says again, more quietly this time. He tries to focus on the experiment at hand… But a minute later, he feels something hit his shoulder. It’s Charlie one row behind him, curly spaghetti hair shaking in silent laughter, having thrown a crumpled ball of paper as a disapproving Meryl hits his arm. Scott picks up the piece of paper and unfurls it:

It’s the letters T and S, inside a crudely-drawn maple leaf… inside a squiggly heart. Scott rolls his eyes, flips Charlie off. _Whatever._

None of this bothers Patrick. “You sound so insulted. Why do you sound so insulted?”

“Because we’re _not_ —"

“Canadians?” 

“— _together,_ ” Scott finally says.

They’re not together. He’s not dating Tessa. Not that he wants to, not like he texts her constantly, even though they do text… a lot. Almost every day. Okay, so he texts her more than he ever does anyone else, but that’s because she’s… Tessa. Bright and brilliant Tessa, who makes him laugh almost as much as he loves making her laugh, and the thought of someone else making her laugh is…  _annoying,_ Scott decides. Not that he has anything against Connor, but any guy who doesn’t have the balls to ask Tessa out himself—and to think, Connor only asked Scott because he had thought Scott and Tessa were dating, _the fucking audacity_ —doesn’t deserve her.

Yes, that’s it. That’s why he’s annoyed; he doesn’t like guys who treat women like they’re the properties of whoever they’re dating.

If Connor wants to date Tessa, he should ask her out himself.

(By some strange miracle of emotional denseness, Scott manages to get through the class—and the rest of the school year—completely ignoring how hard he’s hoping Connor doesn’t actually do that.)

* * *

 

.:.

It starts in the sacred space of the studio, because of course it does. He is seventeen.

Seventeen and breathless as his heart hammers in his chest. His shirt bunched and knotted at the front, wrinkled and absolutely soaked through and through. He looks like he had just left the pool, except there is no pool here; only barres and breathless young dancers who have been paired up for this six-hour advanced partnering workshop.

Scott can feel his arms burning, his leg muscles stretching taut across his bones every time he springs for a jump. It's hot in his body, it's a furnace running for the last five hours, and he's tired and gasping, _he’s fucking exhausted_ , sure. But not done. Not yet.

Not when he's dancing with Tessa.

_One-two-three, one-two-three…_

The dance brings him to pick her up by the waist—if his grip is a little tight, he will apologize later.

_One-two-three, one-two-three…_

The piano music soars, he holds her up as still as he can as she maintains the pose (steady, _steady_ , breathe, _breathe_ ) then spins and drops her in his arms, and they continue in perfect sync.

_One-two-three, one-two-three…_

(The waltz keeps their bodies close together, Tessa’s head lilting in time with the melody, his limbs curving around hers in the steps, something light and melancholy wrapping their bodies around in the movements.)

_One-two-three, one-two-three…_

(And if he’s smiling, it’s not because he would know the curve of her hips blindfolded, not because he’s memorised the way her lungs move against his when chasing oxygen. Not because she is as familiar to him as his own name. Not because she’s the only student in this school he’d trust to comment on his spinal alignment, his extensions, his jumps.)

_One-two-three, one-two-three…_

(It’s not strange at all, if he would permit himself to muse about it, how he knows the scent of her, could almost fold them up in his mouth: clean strawberry and a splash of warm vanilla and magnolias, the crisp scent of her leotard and the musk of her skin.) 

_One-two-three, one-two-three…_

(And if he could ever permit himself to think about it in the space of _Valse Triste_ —which he doesn’t, no, he would never—he could almost wake up to the aftermath of affection he's not permitted to show. The dreams of dark hair and acres of pale skin, and a smile so radiant that it burns something in his chest; a quietly livid, heavy ache that has gotten heavier, the closer they have become these last few years.)

_One-two-three, one-two-three…_

They learned these steps just a few hours ago, but surely this is how it was always meant to feel like? His mouth brushes her temple, her eyes flutter close when he closes in, and the waltz feels like the most natural thing in the world. This isn't choreography, this isn't dancing. This is just breathing, simple as that.

_One-two-three, one-two-three…_

Tessa looks at him, and he knows it’s because her _tombe_ has turned tiring, and he lets her lean into him a little more for support, his hands gripping hers, both wet from sweat.

The ending pose of the dance drapes her body in his arms, his mouth a half-inch away, their breaths mingling, their bodies flush with the seven minutes' work. He feels her small smile when the piano hits it's final chord, and the telepathic little sentence floats to him in a giddy bubble: _nailed it_.

And then, it’s as if they exit a trance; they straighten up to a few claps from their classmates, some of whom are from the lower batches. He catches Marie-France—one of the principal dancers and their instructor for this class— watching them from where she stands near the baby grand piano, off to the side.

“That was… very good, Scott, Tessa. Very, very good,” Marie says, her accent drooping amiably over a knowing smile as she approaches them at center. “When was the last time you two danced a show together?”

They look at each other, then shake their heads at the same time, still too breathless to say anything. Marie looks stunned.

“Haven’t,” Scott manages to say between haggard exhales. Tessa gasps for air beside him, and he feels a small inclination to rub her back to ease her breathing. (He doesn’t because this is a _masterclass,_ and their instructor is _right there_ , and it’s not that the gesture is inappropriate, but Marie is looking at them funny.)

“And that,” Marie suddenly turns, composed again in a split second, addressing the class in a projected voice, “is how you dance a waltz. Thank you for your participation, Tessa, Scott... I look forward to seeing that again."

Emphasis on the word “that”, which frightens Scott a little more than it probably should, but Marie calls for a fifteen minute break before the next segment about 'connecting with your partner’. Scott doesn’t have time to think much of it before the students head for hydration and stretching near the barres.

He keeps minor tabs on Tessa from the corner of his eye, making sure she drinks enough water and doesn’t forget. (If he lingers too long looking at the stray baby hairs that have unraveled from her bun, his fingers twitching to tuck them behind her ear the way he sometimes does when they practice together, he’s not going to admit that to anyone. Least of all, himself.)

“You doing okay, kiddo?” he asks, handing her the hideously pink water canteen that he gifted her last Christmas. 

She nods and hums her assent as she stretches her hamstrings, taking the canteen from him. She brings the full canteen to her face a little too soon and water sloshes out a bit as she puts it to her mouth.

For a dancer, Tessa is one of the clumsiest real-life people Scott has ever known. 

The thought makes him laugh out loud, Tessa laughing with him. Scott shakes his head, tries to tear his eyes away from the wide smile of a breathless, happy Tessa, and _there it is again_ , this surge of… whatever this is, telling him how important it is that he tuck those stray strands of hair behind her ear.

(He’s a bit distressed at how horribly fond he’s getting to be of her, but again, he’s not about to admit that to himself. Not the fondness, nor the distress.)

“Hey, Scott,” he hears, and it’s Cassie, his ex-girlfriend, brushing past him in a passive-aggressive display of nonchalance. She grabs her stuff nearby and just leaves, presumably for rehearsals, same as other company members who had joined the class. The tight smile she gives him doesn’t escape Scott, but he really couldn’t care less.

He grimaces as he watches her leave, turning to Tessa: “You think she’s still upset at me for breaking up with her?” he comments. He joins Tessa in stretching the muscles that they’ve probably overused.

She doesn’t even look up from her stretches, tone flat and sounding very serious: “I wouldn’t be surprised. What kind of an asshole dumps their girlfriend over email?” she scoffs.

The surprised bark of a laugh escapes him too soon. He snaps her leotard strap like a rubber band against her shoulder. “Yeah. What a dick, eh?” 

Her laughter gets to him in pieces, in the wrinkle of her nose, in her barely-contained hiccups. Tessa leans her head on his shoulder, and he knows it’s her way of saying _Thank you._ And her way of saying _You’re my favourite!,_ the way she would sometimes text him when she finds the food he would sneak into her bag, or the funny note he’d leave in her locker. And her way of saying how much he means to her, how far he’ll go as a dancer, how great he is as a person, the way she always does. Even though he cannot quite always believe her.

Tessa is his best friend. It’s not strange. 

But it’s not _You’re welcome_ that he replies to her, in his mind.

It’s three words. And they don’t sound like the way they’re supposed to between friends.

They don't feel like anything small or moderate. These three words: they don’t feel like a normal thing. They don't feel like something he’s even _allowed_ to think, much less say out loud.

These words, they feel illicit and dangerous and overwhelming and confusing, and too sudden, too much, too real.

He spends the rest of the class trying to pretend he didn’t hear himself think those three words, not at all. A kind of rage overtakes him instead; the pure energy of focus, the grittiness of his competitive self, the razor-sharp ambition… he lets these other emotions drown him, until he isn’t thinking about Tessa anymore.

(About the way she notices. About the way she can obviously sense something going on in his head.)

After the class, she asks him if everything is alright. He tells her it’s nothing.

(The biggest lie he’s ever said in his entire seventeen years of existence.)

* * *

 

.:.

It starts before it was supposed to. He is eighteen.

Eighteen and three-quarters to be exact, with a blood-alcohol content that is a little unwise for this leg of the evening. The tacky Katy Perry party music and Charlie’s terrible flirting sound damp through the thin film of intoxication clinging to his brain. His temples are sticky, and so is the neck of his shirt; everything tends to be sticky when you cram thirty plus people in an apartment that can only sit fifteen. Idly, he stares at the liner on Tanith's shelf: the patterned fabric, for some weird and sentimental reason, reminds him of last week’s milkshakes at their favourite diner a few blocks from the girls’ dorms. Then there’s laughter, and dark hair, and gorgeous green eyes, and the bitter aftertaste of the change he’s not sure he’s ready to face...

Sentimentality, he decides, is gross.

He takes a swig from his bottle. Tanith miraculously laughs at something Charlie says, her blond hair swaying across her face when she throws her head back. Dutifully, Scott plays his role as unobtrusive third-wheel wingman and smirks at whatever the joke was. His fingers are nearly numb around the neck of his beer bottle, his eyes swimming in a little bit of haze…

…and a lot of something else.

There’s a saying at Gadbois: enjoy the prelude while it lasts; the prelude being the time they spend training for the _real_ stuff, a prelude made of all these years dancing as a student in the school, with the luxury of guaranteed belongingness. Tomorrow, Scott and the rest of his batch graduate from a decade of prelude. Tomorrow, he meets with the directors, where he will find out if he made the cut. If he got into the Company. Tomorrow is the first of many days where nothing—no role, no job, no career—is guaranteed to anyone. The end of an era, as it were.

But that’s tomorrow.

“Beer pong!” Evan yells the bright idea to an already noisy atmosphere, and the intoxicated crowd echoes his excitement. Tables are immediately and haphazardly cleared, people rearranging themselves to participate, and the party rages on. Alcohol is of no object; it is, after all, likely the last time these elite dancers will be able to do this again for a long while, if they make it into the Company. Tomorrow is guillotine day, and more than a few heads will roll.

But tonight, well. It’s the last day of his “prelude”, so to speak. And Scott is going to damn well enjoy it.

Except he can’t.

Not when Fedor Andreev, legendary Russian import and not to mention, _the_ _headmistress’ son_ , is monopolising Tessa’s time and attention…

“What are you looking at, Moir?” Tanith inquires with a smirk, knowing full well _exactly_ what he’s looking at. Charlie follows Tanith’s line of sight and puts on a matching smirk, the _traitor._

Scott shakes his head at them both, makes a show of rolling his eyes.

Many of the younger batches have been invited as well, but only those who have been consistently selected to be in advanced classes; ballet is a merit-based career, and it is never more evident than when natural selection creates echelons out of the gifted and the… not.

It’s good that the party is well-stocked. _There’s nothing like alcohol to equalise people_ , Scott thinks to himself. If he weren’t so damn… uptight, he’d probably be on a table right now, singing loudly and off-key as Maroon 5 crooned about how she will be loved. But, alas.

(At the back of his mind, he takes note of how many beers Tessa has had. Because she doesn’t have the highest tolerance, and even though he’s a little peeved right now, he’s not a shitty friend.) 

(And also: _Fuck you, Fedor_.)

* * *

 

He feels it in his blood—two shots of vodka, three of tequila, and several beers later, he’s not inclined to remember the exact number—around eleven p.m., when he glances around and his eyes find a glaring absence of his favourite dance partner…

“They went upstairs,” Adam helpfully supplies when he notices what Scott is doing.

“What?”

Adam continues to pour himself a red cupful of sangria. “Virtue. She’s upstairs with Mr. Footwork, probably making out or something.”

Scott’s hand slips from where it is leaning on the curved edge of the marble countertop in Tanith’s kitchen. His brain isn’t fast enough to avert the disaster that is him, on too much alcohol, hearing about Tessa kissing Fedor. He lands in a heap on the floor, Adam guffawing with poorly-concealed pity as he sets his cup down to help Scott up.

In some distantly-functioning part of his brain, Scott thinks he should maybe try to carry his own weight. But something big and heavy has dropped in his stomach, and he thinks it must be his heart. He doesn’t feel like getting up.

It takes both Patrick and Adam to lumber him into a couch a few steps away. The party is raucous and more than a few comrades have fallen into the same stupor; there’s a commotion in the hallway, and Scott thinks he hears glass breaking. Patrick excuses himself, says something about making sure Charlie doesn’t tear a muscle trying to prove he could stretch his splits farther than Andrew. Sara Bareilles comes on, singing about love songs, and it’s such a _Tanith_ playlist, Scott wryly thinks. She and Charlie are _so_ meant to be.

But Adam remains immovable, arms crossed, hip jutting out and screaming judgement, looming over him like some kind of grim reaper, ready to harvest the truth from his dead, inebriated body. Because that’s what good friends do.

“Listen, Scotty. Can I be honest? I’m just gonna be honest,” Adam starts. There’s wild yelling from somewhere to Scott's seven o’clock, Tessa and Fedor getting to second base flashes through Scott’s soaked brain, and he just might throw up. “Like, on a scale of one to Marina, didn't you ever stop to think that maybe it's time that you, you know," and Adam rolls his eyes dramatically to make his point, “man the fuck up and tell your 'best friend’—" his air quotes are as exaggerated as the rest of him, “—that you are hopelessly in love with her?"

Scott grimaces because that's about as blunt as you can get. It’s pretty brutal, and totally _untrue._

(Because self-honesty was never his forte. They don't sell that shit in Times Square.)

He looks at his right hand, which is strangely devoid of beer. He’s well past white-girl-wasted and into sleepily-shitfaced, he knows it’s probably been confiscated. That doesn’t stop him from asking anyway.

“Where’s my beer?”

* * *

 

The night progresses from uninhibited to drowsy as the tendrils of tomorrow’s anxiety start wrapping around intoxicated brains. Various dancers have either gone home to call it a night, or passed out all over Tanith’s house, drunk and/or high off of what feels like their last night on earth. It’s around two a.m., And Scott knows that Tessa has been nursing her third bottle of beer when Meryl—focused, sharp, rigid Meryl—stands on top of Tanith's Scandinavian coffee table, hoarsely declaring something about playing another game, and calling participants out one by one, by name. Tessa and Scott included. The hour is far into the night for protest.

It’s a crude circle game of spin-the-bottle, mixed with truth or dare around the living room floor. And the rules are apparently, there are three options now: truth, dare, or kiss whoever’s asking. Tessa immediately scoots to beside Scott, and he has to muster what sobriety he has to tamp down the sudden urge to hug her tight. He thanks what Scandinavian gods inhabit Tanith's house that Fedor had already called it a night as well, and is nowhere in sight.

"Truth," Charlie says, when the bottle lands on him, and there's muted groans from all around the circle calling him a coward for not making the game more fun. Everyone knows Charlie's everything; friendly, typical Charlie is not the most secretive guy on earth.

"Who would you rather kiss: Tanith, or Tessa?” Meryl slurs, a cheshire grin spreading over her features. Immediately, the entire circle comes alive with the scandal. Andrew starts guffawing, Adam dramatically fakes fainting, there are a few more yelps and some very loud cheers. Guillaume high-fives Meryl for making Charlie’s boring “truth” choice more interesting.

“Oh, sure, okay, oh—c’mon guys, we’re not twelve,” Charlie protests, as he tries to hide his blush behind a particularly long swig from his beer bottle. For his part, Scott knows that’s it’s just a ploy; if Charlie answers Tanith, it puts his not-so-secret affection out in the open. But if he answers Tessa…

“Just tell us whose mouth you think is more interesting!” Scott finds himself saying amidst the chatter, without any filter whatsoever. Without regard for Tessa beside him, showing all signs of being uncomfortable. He hates himself already.

“Don’t be a pussy, White. Answer the question,” Meryl says, and she’s a bit drunk, but it doesn’t mar her signature glare, and the way she’s enjoying Charlie’s discomfort.

Scott tries, he really does. He keeps his mouth shut, his face blank. Stares at Charlie, who looks at him right back. Tries to remember that they’re friends, tries not to think how he would feel if he says “Tessa”. Tries to remember this is all just a stupid game.

Then, Charlie concedes with an exaggerated huff. He tells Meryl, “You know what? You asked for this.” Then surges across the circle to plant a kiss on Meryl herself.

The noise everyone makes is absurd.

(But the only thing Scott hears through the cheers and yells is the wave of tension leaving his body.)

And when everyone's laughter has subsided, when he has finally chuckled along himself, he looks at the girl beside him, wide-eyed, observing everything. His heart catches on the sight, his sobering brain wrapping an arm around her shoulders to pull her in as he plants a small kiss on her hairline.

As it would, they go around in circles, spending ample time with every spin. When suddenly, the bottle lands on Tessa. Tessa opts for truth, and Scott wants to snort but it comes out like a fond chuckle because _of course you’d choose truth._  

Maddison's eyes light up with a great question:

"Okay, Tessa. Truth: what, who, and where was... your first kiss?”

Quiet murmurs of assent, because it _is_ a great question. So great, in fact, that Scott tilts his head to regard Tessa, curious just like everyone else.

They’ve never talked about this, about kisses and crushes and significant others. He’s had… a few, and he’s sure word gets around, but he’s never really discussed them with her. Probably because when he’s with her, he doesn’t really tend to think of anyone else. 

“Um,” Tessa says, her calm smile taking on a slightly nervous turn, which he recognises. “Different question, please?”

The circle is dismissive: no, Tessa shouldn’t get a different question, because there’s clearly something there.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never kissed anyone…?!” Adam exclaims in the middle of the hubbub.

“No! No, I have! It’s just… it’s boring,” she says, somewhat shyly, and then she recounts the tale of sometime when she was eight, and a boy was ten, and it was back at home in London, and he was at her skating club, and how it was so long ago, and she wishes it were more interesting but alas: the boy had broken up with her over the phone because his friends told him to, and that was that.

And it _is_ boring, so the game continues. But Scott can’t help but stare a hole into the side of Tessa’s head until she finally turns to him. He cocks an eyebrow. Because that whole story was bullshit, and he’s probably the only person in this house who could tell.

 _Liar,_ he calls her in his mind, with a sickening affection he doesn’t know what to do with.

* * *

“Psst. Scott?” 

“Mmm?” he grunts, eyes firmly closed, pretending to be asleep even though there’s quite possibly no way that he can sleep tonight. Not with the jitters of tomorrow like ants under his skin, his stomach churning with so much acid from the stress. Not with so little left to sleep of, five am in the early morning. Not with Tessa beside him, sprawled as they are with a number of their friends, across comforters strewn about Tanith’s living room. His classmates always did tease him that he’s too intense, in general, in life. He’s always taken it as a compliment, but it doesn’t feel like one now, stewing in the anxieties of having the rest of his life hanging on tomorrow’s verdict. 

He’s pretty sure most everyone else are knocked out, and Patrick is snoring where he lies by the sofa. Some of the girls are in Tanith’s bedroom, some of the boys are slumped over the couches. The speakers are still playing, but very softly, some kind of freeform jazz music they would _never_ have danced to in the studio. (God only knows the nightmares they’d have if Tanith had put them to bed with Tchaikovsky in the background).

They had all slowly dropped like flies, one by one, as the evening would have it. All but the closest of friends had stayed, hence, the sleeping arrangements.

(He had claimed two fluffy comforters, instead of one, and had made a space for them in the chaos of sleeping bodies. Tessa had just blinked up at him, giving him one of the two pillows she had found, smiling as she took her place beside him. Scott ignores the quiet bliss he feels as they laid down to sleep.)

That is, until not perhaps thirty minutes later that Tessa is whispering at him. He cocks an eye open, and she asks him who’s snoring, and he says it’s Patrick because he’d know that pattern of exhale anywhere after that one time he had slept over during a snowstorm at Chiddy’s grandma’s place.

And just like that, they’re trading whispers in the quiet of dawn. The sky is baby blue, peeking through the gauzy curtains, as Tessa asks him about Illderton again, and he wracks his brain for something he hasn’t told her yet about his beloved hometown. She updates him about Jordan, about her brothers, hints about her parents which Scott knows better than to ask further about. She talks to him about anything and everything, until he’s (quietly) laughing and listening and forgetting about tomorrow.

“Oh—oh, I see what you’re doing,” he says as he realises it somewhere in the middle of his diatribe about the school’s bland cafeteria food.

“What?”

He smiles. Just smiles, as his best friend has managed to distract him from thinking about tomorrow, if only for a little while. “Nothing,” he replies, tucking away a piece of her hair that’s fallen on her face. And if he’s grinning like a fool, maybe it’s because he is one. 

“Why’d you lie?” He blurts out, caught in a moment of curiosity and emotion.

“What?”

“About your first kiss. Earlier.”

“I… that’s not…I wasn’t lying—”

He scoffs. “C’mon, T. I know you. That’s hardly fair.”

The smile fades from her face and he immediately regrets the inquiry. “Hey, okay, you don’t have to tell me anything,” he says, shifting away from his side as he lies on his back, staring at the ceiling. “I just—kinda want you to know that I can tell. Not that—it’s not a threat or anything, it’s just… You never have to lie to me, Tess. Ever. And I’d understand if you didn’t, I don’t know, wanna talk about it or something. But I guess I just wanted you to know that.”

He doesn’t so much see as he _feels_ the stillness from her. Then she turns from her side and lies on her back too, trying to catch, maybe, what he’s staring at on the ceiling.

“I don’t know,” Tessa starts, and it comes out quiet and hesitant. “I guess I wanted them to think I’d kissed someone already.”

There’s a pause that Scott deliberately doesn’t try to fill. Tessa goes on: “Fedor was being nice and attentive and all and, I mean, he’s _nice_.” Scott flinches at this, and the only consolation he has is that Tessa seems to flinch too. “But I just, I know I should probably want to. Kiss someone, I mean. But I don’t know. I guess I always wished that—that it’d be…”

“It’d be what,” comes out hoarse, Scott barely recognising his own whisper.

“Special,” Tessa almost scoffs. He hears it, the way the word falls out of her mouth, carelessly discarded.

"What's wrong with 'special'?"

"Nothing. It's just..."

He turns to look at her just in time to catch her swallowing a lump in her throat. His eyes linger on the movement, but he catches himself and promptly stares back at the ceiling.

“Sometimes I feel like,” Tessa starts again, voice aloof and lost in a different plane, and Scott loves listening to her when she gets this vulnerable. “Like there’s this… big, terrible feeling. And it’s not just kissing, it’s… this big _thing_ , in my chest, like... like wanting. Or, like maybe what you feel when Romeo and Juliet finally get together, on the stage. Or when Giselle forgives because—because she loves him. Like… it could all be real. And it’s just so overwhelming, and I just—” She chuckles at that last part, maybe thinking that she’s ridiculous but _It’s not. It’s not ridiculous, Tess_ , Scott almost says.

“It’s a lot, and sometimes it makes me want to cry. I don’t like it. I hate it. So I just ignore it until it goes away,” Tessa finally ends. “I don’t think I’d be a great girlfriend, anyway.”

"That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard _,_ ”Scott thinks, two seconds too late to realise that he said that out loud.

"What?" Tessa suddenly turns to him, voice small and surprised. He wants to hit himself.

 _“_ That isn’t—I’m sorry, T, that’s not what I meant. I don’t think—it’s not stupid. That’s not what I meant,” he says, passing a hand over his face in aggravation. When Tessa doesn’t respond, he takes a breath to compose himself, before continuing:

“What I mean is, I don’t think you’d make a… a bad girlfriend, per se—" She snorts at him and he doesn’t know if he’ll be offended or amused.

“How would you know?” Tessa quietly chuckles, and the fact that he  _doesn’t,_ he couldn’t possibly know how Tessa is as a girlfriend, because once upon a time, he realised he loved her. And he made a promise to himself to do right by her, and he has faithfully stuck by that promise, and now she finds that so amusing. 

Even though there are days he feels like he wants to die of wanting, of longing. Of exhaustedly telling himself that she deserves better than a best friend who doesn’t know how to be just a friend, or a boyfriend who can’t give her jack shit.

The silence that follows is like a stranger; and for the first time, in almost all the time he’s known her, it’s as if their small, secret connection goes quiet, right before the first hours of dawn.

* * *

 

.:.

It starts the way it usually does. He is nineteen years old.

Nineteen years old, two a.m., at the back of his dad's car. Licking his way into the mouth of one very hot brunette, hands heavy all over her, the air humming with heat and hormones, warmth everywhere, her fingernails clawing at his back, breathy sighs, fast heartbeats, closed eyes. He’s nineteen, he’s part of one of the world’s best ballet companies. He’s nineteen, and between his hopes and dreams, between the remnants of school and shows and rehearsals, Scott busies himself with… well. Perfectly normal, teenage, Tuesday morning activities.

Jessica—he remembers her name this time—makes a particularly loud gasp when he sucks at a pulse point near her ear timed well enough to pinch a braless breast through her white shirt. Life is good. 

He would never have heard it if it his phone was set to silent, but alas.

“Hang on, hang on, hang on… one sec,” he says, extricating his still-clothed self from their tangle of limbs while Jessica—Were they together? Did he call her his girlfriend already? He likes her for sure, but he can’t remember, exactly, if they were already official—assaults his neck with open-mouthed kisses.

It’s a text from Tessa: _Hey scott_

He would be peeved, he _is_ a bit, but she follows with a universally recognisable :( and it’s like a bucket of ice water pours on him, concern replacing the desire that had been rushing to his dick not two seconds ago. It’s one a.m. on a Tuesday, what the hell is she doing, texting him at this ungodly hour?

(Three to five scenarios pass through his mind in quick succession, taking into account that this is New York, she’s only seventeen, Tessa doesn’t text like this, Tessa _never_ texts like this, etc. The desire to fuck evaporates on account of all his mental energies going to fight off the unwarranted panic that surges out of nowhere.)

 _hey. lil busy right now but whats up?,_ he texts back. He resolutely puts his phone down and tries to chase back the arousal, continues making out with his girlfriend(?), even takes his shirt off for the hell of it, but if he’s glancing back to his phone every four seconds, well.

Jessica fumbles with his belt and he’s trying really hard to concentrate on _anything else_ except the thought of—

 _oh ok._ is Tessa’s short reply. Followed by:

_idk where I am. pls help?_

And then:

_Im drunk :(_

“Jesus christ, Tess,” Scott whispers in slightly panicked aggravation when he reads that last text. He hears Jessica groan and ask him who it is, he replies with “best friend”. 

(The two words he’s secretly used to describe this girl who has wormed her way into his life in the last four years, never mind that it is the understatement of the century.)

Which much charm and supplication—and his signature "Scott Smirk", as Tessa always teases him about—he manages to cut his tryst short, drop Jessica off at her apartment, before grumpily trying to call Tessa. She doesn’t pick up. Not on the second ring (which is her norm), not on the third (already a stretch here…), and she misses his first call, then his second.

By the time he tries to locate her phone through an app, he’s ready to commit double homicide and vehicular manslaughter. It still doesn’t work, as her phone must be turned off.

(He focuses on driving around the city, the vicinity near the campus, trying to recall spots where she might have gone with Kaitlyn or Meryl for some drinks, maybe, trying to ignore the rattle in his ribcage, the sweat of his palms on the steering wheel, the very strong unease that’s making him imagine the worst case scenarios, _Fucking hell, Tessa. Where are you…)_

Finally, his phone starts ringing as he’s driving a painfully slow course, around the seedy east side of the Gabois campus. Out of blind rage, he picks it up without even looking at the caller id:

“Tessa, where the fuck are you?!”

“ _Wh-what? What’s wrong with you, man? It’s Charlie._ ”

The intoxicated mirth in Charlie's voice is contextually supported by the almost deafening club music that Scott can hear through the line.

“Chucky?”

“ _Yeah, dude—_ ”

“Not now, man. I’m busy.”

“ _Looking for Tessa? Yeah, yeah, that’s why I’m calling._ ” Scott hits the breaks a little too fast, and the car behind him blares its horns. Charlie continues: “ _She’s here, she’s with—shit, she’s so wasted—_ ”

“Where?!” Scott says, not recognising the brand of deep-seated annoyance that stains his voice. “Where are you?”

* * *

The terse exchange between him and Charlie reveals a few things: One, that Tessa is currently not sober enough to pick up any of his calls, or use her phone for that matter, and so Meryl had confiscated her phone for her. Right after she had sent the texts to Scott. Two, they are at a club nearby, celebrating Meryl’s birthday. Three, it was Patrick and Charlie’s idea to bring Tessa along.

(Four, Scott is going to _kill_ them.) 

“Scott—”

 _Fuck off, Charlie_ is what Scott first thinks, but he holds his tongue.

He is not in the mood to play nice, not when he sees Tessa uncharacteristically slumped on a concrete parking stop near the club, flanked by Meryl and Patrick. Charlie stands off to the side, holding a water bottle, bouncing on the balls of his feet, unsure. Scott wants to punch him. Well, he wants to punch something.

He kneels in front of Tessa, touches her warm cheek, brushes the auburn hair off of her face. She’s a mess, he thinks, with no small amount of concern. When she focuses her half-lidded eyes on him, he smiles wanly.

"Hey, kiddo. You okay?"

"Scott?" comes out hoarse, tired. He can feel her damp neck, the way her hair sticks to her skin, the way her red-rimmed lids look comically puffy underneath that dark, fading eyeliner.

She's been crying. The thought slices clean through him.

* * *

It continues to gnaw at him, this irreversible fact that Tessa Virtue, once dubbed “ice princess”, a grounding and resilient presence in his life, with a work ethic made of galvanised steel, was… crying. At some point earlier that day. Hell, maybe even an hour before he picked her up. He tries to focus on stop lights and traffic rules, he really does, but he keeps glancing at her in the passenger seat, all buckled up and barley conscious.

He’s seen her disappointed, maybe even a little pissed. But, _crying_?

That is… false. That is an error in the fabric of the universe.

“Scott. I’m fine. Please stop,” he hears her say, and only then does he notice his thumbs erratically tapping against the steering wheel.

 _Liar,_ he wants to say, but he doesn’t. She deserves better than his misplaced spite.

And he is spiteful, isn’t he? He’s pretty fucking spiteful, that after four years of being so close, she seems to be so... distant, recently. Sure, he’s been busy too, but he’s always initiated them hanging out. He doesn’t think he could ever… not want to hang out with her, busy schedules be damned. But sure, okay, he’s also trying to put a little more distance between them since he got into the Company; they’re not together, and people talk. He doesn’t want to give the world the wrong impression, doesn’t feel like being the kind of guy who obsessively hoards a girl’s time and attention. (Throwback to Fedor, and Ryan, and every other lurker who has ever buzzed him up, asking about her.) Tessa is beautiful and crazy talented, a goddamn _catch,_ and he’s lucky enough to be one of her closest friends; he’s not gonna push it. He’s not a dick, thank you very much. He knows it’s about time to put a little distance. Just a little.

(It’s not so much “distance” as it is “self-preservation” on his part, and yeah, okay. He's a big fat hypocrite. He's not allowed to be pissed, or spiteful.) 

(He's not allowed to feel a lot of things. But try telling that to the feelings.) 

He looks at her briefly; she is buckled in and leaning on the door of the passenger side, the blue and yellow and red city lights glancing across her emotionless, sobering face. Her red-rimmed bug eyes tell him she’s deep in thought. Lost in her own little world, not bothering to be honest with him about whatever the hell it is that’s gotten her worked up, enough to get drunk on a weekday...

The spite wells up without any warning like the rude bastard that it is.

"Fuck, Tess, don’t—I called, like, I don’t know, five times? You weren’t picking up, what was I supposed to think?! I just—” Scott hits the steering wheel mid-turn in frustration. Not once do his eyes leave the road. “I just wish you’d told me, T. I wish you’d, I don’t know, talked to me about whatever it is. Instead of, you know, getting wasted on a Monday night and then just—just texting me out of the blue like, like—”

“I’m sorry,” she says in a breath. And then:

“You were out tonight and I didn’t—” she chokes, suddenly, and Scott feels it too: Tessa, taking it upon herself to swallow the elephant in the room. He grits his teeth together.

He glances at her again, and her bright eyes are steely, staring into nothing even as they mist with unshed tears. She blinks them back without flinching, he can almost feel her quietly swallow it away. Her face is an emotionless mask, even as she swipes very quickly under her eyes, then she’s looking down at her fingers, worrying the hem of her low-cut blouse.

_Ah, fuck._

He steers the car to park on the side of an alley, willing the guilt to stop, stop, just _stop_.

(Willing the affection to die on his tongue, willing so many emotions to just _quit it,_ before he ends up saying something he’s going to regret later.)

He rubs his eyes with the base of his palms, shakes his head, sharply exhales the weird, fuzzy feelings. Then turns to her more fully in the dark of his dad’s pickup. 

She smiles at him. 

The weird, fuzzy feelings start cropping up again and he’s trying really hard not to smile back because he’s supposed to be frustrated, _damnit_. He knows what this is, he just wishes it... isn’t what it is. So he asks again:

“Why are you crying, Tessa?”

The way she looks at him, the furrowed brow, eyes wide open, is a full conversation between them. It’s a question of _Do you really want to go there?_ His unflinching response of _Let’s get this out of the way_.

“I didn’t get it,” she says, quietly, looking at the blinking lights of his hazard button on the dashboard, eyes bright and steady. “I didn’t get the part. Marina asked me to try for Sleeping Beauty. I didn’t get in,” she says, and then she looks at him, cutting and steely.

He knows. They both know. Her answer is a lie. And this is her, daring him to call her out on her bullshit. She wants him to say it, wants him to open the conversation.

He wants to.

He wants to call it out. He wants to put it all on the table. _Me and you. Just us, no ballet in the way._

But how do you say _I know why you're sad sometimes, I can see it. Every time you glance down when I smile, I know you lean into me because I let you and you want to. Because I was first. I know it's because of me. I know what I am to you._

How do you say _I know you care about me, I know you do. I wish I didn’t know, but I do know. And it kills me. Because I care about you too._

How do you say  _You are the one good thing that anchors me sometimes, it scares the hell out of me._

How do you say _But_   _I'll make you cry. I never want to see you cry but I know I'll make you cry. Because I don’t know how to be with you beyond what we are, and you’re too special and too important and this is too important to me. I’m might hurt you. I don't think I can live with that._

(How do you say _I wish I knew how to be good enough for you. But I don't know if I am. And I love you too much to ask you to risk it._ )

 _I love you,_ he wants to say, but he doesn’t. She deserves better than a boy who doesn’t know what comes after that.

“Then… we’ll work on it,” he says instead, mindful of every word, every syllable. “We’ll work on it. I’ll, uh. I’ll help you.”

That wasn’t really where the conversation was supposed to go, he knows this. But with a stroke of masochism, he adds: “You know you’re… like, my best friend, right? We’re friends, T,” he says, hand going to the back of his neck, suddenly unable to look at her. He fixes his eyes on the rain outside, catching the streetlight in glittering fragments. Since when did it start to rain? “We can—"

He loses words, but puts his hand on hers. Not twining their fingers, the way he sometimes did. Just… puts his hand on hers and takes it in a dance hold.

Because that’s what they are. Friends. Dance partners. Colleagues. This is him, drawing the line clearly. Preserving what they are now, rather than risking it for a future he’s not sure he can give her.

“Okay,” Tessa says, tired and accepting. She squeezes his fingers. “Okay,” she breathes out again, this time steady and resolute. 

It cuts too close to the bone, the way she says it. Scott wishes it didn’t sound like a death sentence of his own doing. But it does. And it is. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from the Sleeping at Last song of the same name, because. :)) <3 u ol
> 
> — Katie

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are super duper welcome! :)
> 
> Come yell at me in Tumblr: reyreyalltheway
> 
> xoxoxo  
> —Katie


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